Discourses versus life courses: servants' extramarital sexual activities in Flanders during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

This article combines qualitative and quantitative analysis to study the effect of rural-urban migration on the sexual behavior of servants in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Flanders. In the qualitative part, I compare various discourses on servants' extramarital behavior to sketch the ideological context which affected women's agency. Contemporaries were commonly convinced that urban servants more often became pregnant out-of-wedlock than other women, but disagreed on the causes for this: vulnerability or immorality. In the quantitative part, I use life course analysis to determine differences in the behavioral patterns of servants and women who were never servants. Looking both at extramarital fertility and at marriage behavior, I argue that servants were slightly more risk-taking when entering into extramarital relationships. With this mixed-methods approach, this article avoids one-dimensional readings of the sources, and I challenge the dichotomous use of concepts that are too basic to comprehend the complexity of extramarital sexual behavior

Structural fire design of ear strengthened RC beams

This paper discusses the structural fire design of reinforced concrete beams strengthened in flexure by means of externally applied reinforcement (EAR). It is focusing on the Eurocode approach for fire rating of individual members. Three different fire safety approaches are presented, depending on the strengthening ratio. Applicability of fire design methods, such as the use of the tabulated data and 500°C isotherm methods by EN1992-1-2, is indicated. Results show the importance of a well thought approach in the structural fire design of EAR, being a popular strengthening technique for concrete members. Through this strengthening solution, the load bearing capacity of existing members is strengthened or retrofitted, both in service conditions and at ultimate limit state. The EAR strengthening relies on a good bond interaction between the existing member and the externally applied reinforcement. However, given the weak properties of the bond interface at elevated temperatures, the fire performance is of special concern in the structural design of EAR strengthened reinforced concrete

Sore throat in primary care : there are still problems in identifying who will develop complications of sore throat in primary care

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Bond shear stress-slip relationships for FRP-NSM systems at elevated temperature

In the last years Near Surface Mounted (NSM) reinforcement has mainly been applied at ambient temperature, to strengthen reinforced concrete (RC) beams with FRP (fibre reinforced polymer) materials. Thereby, FRP bars/strips are embedded inside the concrete section by means of grooves filled with adhesive. The behaviour of FRP-NSM strengthening systems at elevated temperature is signicantly influenced by the type of adhesive (e.g. cementitious grout is usually more stable than epoxy resin at high temperature). To characterize the FRP-NSM behaviour two steps are needed: 1) shear tests performed in order to determine the FRP-concrete interaction via bond stress-slip curves and 2) constitutive bond stress-slip relationships for use in structural design (analytical and numerical). Hereby, the bond behaviour is to be considered temperature dependent. During two experimental campaigns, double bond shear tests were performed in order to study the behaviour of FRP-NSM systems at elevated temperature using different types of adhesive, epoxy resin and cementitious grout respectively. The bond shear stress-slip curves are discussed including the effect of different types of adhesive. Simplified bond stress-slip relationships are proposed to model the FRP-concrete interaction at high temperature

Engineering model for SFRC shear strength based on the MC2010 MCFT approach

Recent developments and ongoing research in the field of steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) have led to its implementation into national and international design codes and guidelines. Since fibres are promising as an alternative for (minimum) shear reinforcement, special attention is given towards new shear design provisions for FRC elements. Although these design models are available and validated with respect to research results, the application of fibres as shear reinforcement for both reinforced and prestressed concrete beams is rather limited in daily practice, due to lack of experience in the engineering community with respect to these design guidelines, as well as limited insight in their accuracy. In perspective to a PhD study of the second author, the most important shear design models available for SFRC (RILEM, Model Code, Plasticity Model) are verified in terms of accuracy of the models against a shear test database containing 99 SFRC elements (69 reinforced concrete and 30 prestressed concrete). Based on the obtained insights, a simplified engineering model is proposed for further evaluation by the research community. This model, which predicts the shear capacity of SFRC beams without stirrups, can be regarded as a closed form version of the modified compression field theory (MCFT) approach presented in fib Model Code 2010

Interventions to Control Virus Transmission During an Outbreak of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever: Experience from Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1995.

On 6 May 1995, the Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) coordinator in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), received a request for assistance for what was believed to be a concurrent outbreak of bacillary dysentery and viral hemorrhagic fever (suspected Ebola hemorrhagic fever [EHF]) in the town of Kikwit, DRC. On 11 May, the MSF intervention team assessed Kikwit General Hospital. This initial assessment revealed a nonfunctional isolation ward for suspected EHF cases; a lack of water and electricity; no waste disposal system; and no protective gear for medical staff. The priorities set by MSF were to establish a functional isolation ward to deal with EHF and to distribute protective supplies to individuals who were involved with patient care. Before the intervention, 67 health workers contracted EHF; after the initiation of control measures, just 3 cases were reported among health staff and none among Red Cross volunteers involved in body burial